cloth diaper service, is it still cheeper the sposies?

[lovebug]

i have a friend that is going to have a baby. i asked her what she would like as a gift. we talked about cloth diaper and she said she would only do it if someone washed them for her. she really want to CDer! but for her the idea of washing them grosses her out. i asked her if she would want me to get her a service for the first few weeks to see if she liked them.

its 18.00 a week, plus a 25.00 start up cost

Here is the site that is my only choice for our area:
http://ecobabydiaperservice.com/pricing.asp

so my question is if she wants to continue with this will she still save money?

[midnightmommy]

Hm...I don't think so...maybe go to the store and see how much a package of sposies is in her area. You could also point out to her that most mommies really don't mind their own baby's poop. She can always used disposables and transition into cloth once she knows it's not that bad. The trick is to have everything you need for cloth ready to go, so when you decide to try you can just start.

[Equuskia]

Hmm....only 70 diapers a wek? I'm pretty sure I remember my newborn (like from the 2nd week on) used an average of 16 diapers a day because she pooped a lot. I had ~50 diapers and they did not last more than 3 days.

[cristeen]

70/week only allows 10 dipes a day - for a newborn that is usually not enough.

That being said though - go down to the grocery store/Target and price out dipes. Can you get 70 dipes for $20? If not, then yes, it's cheaper. I seem to recall that diaper service is cheaper than sposies, but owning is cheaper than service (if you don't have to pay for coin-op laundry).

[junipervt]

maybe after doing the service for a bit she wont be so grossed out by the prospect of washing her own diapers. & the service is a good intro to cloth. I deliver for our local diaper service (we do 80 diapers for small / prices are a bit higher) & a lot of people start out w/ the service for 6-12 weeks then end up buying & washing their own.

Is this her 1st baby? I know my husband was a bit grossed out by the prospect of poop & had me buy him flushable liners before DD was born. But once she was here the poop didn't gross him out so much & we never used the liners.

[weliveintheforest]

It may not look like a huge savings, but it's a nice way to try out cd-ing. If we had a local service with good diapers, I'd totally consider it just to save myself the time. I used one when my dd was a nb, but I didn't like the diapers they provided (prefolds that didn't work with snappis)

[lovebug]

oh i did not even think of it being a great start up tool!

[stel]

I was so overwhelmed when I had my newborn that I hated the prefolds that the diaper service provided and felt like I was changing twice as often, taking twice as much time, and having more blow outs. So I stopped using them and then the diaper service was a waste of money. However, now that my baby is 12 weeks and I'm less overwhelmed and baby poops slightly less frequently, I'm trying cloth again and having a more successful time. I've even used prefolds a little but these one's (unlike the service) are very very soft and absorbent (organic cotton) so = fewer leaks. If someone offered to give me the service again I would decline. However, if someone had given me even 4 all in ones so that I could see how easy it CAN be, I think I would have gotten cloth going sooner and I would have really appreciated saving the money of four diapers. This is just my two cents....

[craft_media_hero]

I checked out our local service, and it would cost about the same. Maybe a couple dollars less per week, but they don't wash the wraps/covers (which you have to buy) or wipes if you use cloth wipes. And our service was set up about the same, 70/wk recommended. So to save $ we'd have to do even less, and then what? We're using sposies as back up or supplementing our own cloth dipes to fill in for the service.

So we would be buying covers, and washing covers and wipes. Why not just wash the dipes, too? For about the same price as sposies, not worth it to me. Yes, you get the environmental benefit, but to me the cost benefit is really important as well.